T3EE16 – a newbies thoughts

[en] Don't expect this blog-post to be a recap of the talks and events around the TYPO3 Eastern Europe 2016 conference. If that's what you are looking for, you will find plenty of information about this event during the next couple of days on the web. Furthermore a lot of the talks will be available online soon and so will the corresponding slides.

What I would like to blog about is related to my thoughts and emotions during my first trip to T3EE.

I have never been to the east before, except a short trip to Poland. I also didn't read anything about Romania, respectively Cluj-Napoca in advance. Not that I did not like to, I simply did not find the time.

So what do you think was my first impression while Johnny* and I where cruising down the streets in a, well let's call it bohemian cab, towards our accommodation? You might have guessed it, I was thinking "Peter, what the heck are you doing here?".

On second thought I was iterating over a couple of stereotypes that came to my mind like:

Homeless dogs on the streets

Dirty towns

Terrible Gypsies

Sleazy guys

After several hours in the city I haven't seen any homeless dogs, nor Gypsies, nor weird looking guys, nor did I note any trash on roadsides. Instead we met very helpful and honestly good people. Almost everybody was capable of speaking English, the service in the small bistro we went for lunch was great, I wish I could make this statement for most German restaurants.

This made me feel a bit more comfortable until we arrived at the Warm-up Party in Casa Ardeleana. It took me quite a while to get used to the traditional Romanian music and honestly I will never become a big fan of this genre, but I discovered that the Romanians where very, very proud of their tradition and that it was an honor for us, the foreign guests to be part of it. After I had realised that, I started to see through different glasses, I really began to enjoy the party, which resulted in being one of the last to leave.

On the following two conference days my new love for Romania began to grow. I had the pleasure to talk to and get to know so many great ppl, not solely Romanians, none of the former stereotypes in my head did exist any more. The passion unveiled by the organiser and all the helping-hands made T3EE even more fun, not to mention the social event and the bye-bye party.

Finally we had to leave Romania, which was covered with fresh snow in the morning. While going to the airport I said to Johnny:
"Johnny Baby, wouldn't that be cool if the plane could not start because of the weather condition and we could stay for a while?".

Unfortunately that did not happen.

I have to say thanks to everybody for hosting this event and also for having me as a speaker. Stay as you are, I will return for sure.